university

Originally written for publication in The Boar, Warwick University’s student newspaper.

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As my three-year holiday (degree) nears an end, I find myself becoming increasingly pessimistic. My dazzling optimism has been engulfed by a cynical alter-ego who holds nothing – and I mean nothing – as possible.

It doesn’t matter how proud your parents are, when you are one of thousands of wannabe journalists, hoping to enter the ever-shrinking sector, having blacklisted half of your potential employers for political reasons, the future doesn’t look bright.

Although this may indeed be a fair assessment of my employment opportunities, it’s a position I’ve voluntarily put myself in. I’ve made my bed (out of unsold newspapers) and am now very much lying in it. What I lament is that I’ve used this self-inflicted destitution as an excuse to dismiss all the good things that have happened and are happening to me. I’ve become something of a grinch.

A few weeks ago I got stuck in the queue at Leamington’s flagship two-story nightclub, Evolve. I was waiting to put my coat away and they’d run out of hangers. “This is ridiculous!”, I cried, expressing a sense of entitlement I didn’t realize I could convey with such conviction. I then made a number of oh-so-funny quips well within the earshot of staff members who were in no way responsible for the hold up.

The next day, I woke to the news more than 200 people had died in a nightclub in Brazil. A fire had broken out – many had been trampled in the pandemonium and others had suffocated. I stopped complaining for a moment. Had my night really been all that bad? Perhaps it was time to take stock.

In a few months, I’ll be leaving a top university with a good degree. In all likeliness I won’t be receiving a call from the Guardian but I won’t be on the streets either. I’ll have a roof over my head. Healthcare. Food. Family and friends. I’ll be afforded far more than a huge proportion of the world’s population and – thanks to our morally bankrupt coalition government – a sizeable number of people in the UK.

Make no mistake, as a generation, we have reasons to harbour resentment. Many of them are justified. We’ve been born into a world in which leaders have dismissed the plight of the poor, ravaged resources and installed corrupt economic systems – bastardized capitalisms – on a global scale. But the vast majority of people reading this have shelter in which they can weather the storm. A safety net. If we want to get angry, we should first count our blessings. We should protest because so many others come up short.

Originally written for publication in The Boar, Warwick University’s student newspaper.

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Second term is now well and truly upon us, and for many it brings with it the daunting possibility of actually having to do some work. That’s right, work. Not checking your email account or meeting for a ‘catch up’ in Costa or ‘grabbing a bite’ in the Bread Oven, but gruelling, depressing, work. In order to make ourselves feel better about neglecting our various assignments and essays over Christmas, thousands of us will venture to the library. Recently however, a number of students have testified to undergoing harrowing hallucinatory experiences in our otherwise beloved library. In place of the signs which designate certain floors for group work and others for individual study, some Warwick students are being met with the ghostly apparition of Barry Scott.

The infamous TV marketer reportedly asks, “Are you an obnoxious Warwick student looking for somewhere to hang out and chat to your friends? Do you want to talk about how bloody great you all are and how you’re going to be a city banker just like your Dad and how your gap year was so fucking spiritual? Why not try the silent study floors in the library today?”

Assuming these students aren’t actually haunted by the Cillit Bang salesman encouraging them to annoy everyone in the library, we might conclude that they are genuinely confused. A sign that says, “No talking”, they might suggest, is misleadingly ambiguous. The solution, then, is probably more signs, and signs that are more specific.

The library could be decorated with decidedly useful advice like, “Use Facebook chat to talk to the person sitting three tables away.” It could also house a few home truths such as, “Nobody here gives a shit about how hammered you got last night, so shut up about it.” What is clear is that we need to take some sort of action and we need to take it now. During the exam-infested third term, the library becomes the academic equivalent of a hotel swimming pool and spaces to study are like sun beds. Students lay claim to them with coats and books instead of towels and are miserable instead of happy, but it’s only a metaphor, so get over it.

My point is this: if we don’t want to see people urinating in the pool, we need to put a stop to it before the holiday season begins. So next time you’re in one of the library’s silent areas and you overhear someone describing their favourite TV show and/or how long it usually takes them to reach orgasm, give them a piece of your mind. But whisper, because it’s a library. Now shut up and do some work.

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